Tom Eaves is back – what the numbers could add up to second time around
The headline numbers suggest a striker in decline. The minutes, level and context tell a more complicated story
David Tickner writes regularly about Gillingham Football Club on Substack. You can read, follow or subscribe for free at Gills Journal | David Tickner | Substack.
Two weeks earlier, Tom Eaves sat in the stands alongside Director of Recruitment, Andy Hessenthaler watching Gillingham beat Bristol Rovers 3-0. Last Saturday, he was back in blue replacing Lamin Sillah after 63 minutes in the goalless draw with Newport County.
Even without registering a shot, his presence troubled the Newport defence. Manager Gareth Ainsworth felt Eaves should have been awarded a penalty after being held in the box. Later, Eaves was penalised in a challenge with the Newport goalkeeper, a decision many home supporters felt was given the wrong way.
Seven years after leaving Gillingham as a 20-goal striker, what version of Eaves are Gillingham getting back?
Seven years later
Now aged 34, Eaves returns to Priestfield after scoring 40 goals in 97 appearances during his first spell between 2017 and 2019. He left for Championship side Hull City in July 2019, scoring 14 league goals in 97 appearances, before spells with Rotherham United and Northampton Town. Released by Northampton at the end of last season, Eaves trained with the PFA before signing a one-year deal with Gillingham.
Do the headline numbers tell the whole story?
38 goals in 84 league games for Gillingham but only 33 in 206 league appearances since. Case closed? Not quite.
Before Gillingham - then in League One - signed Eaves first time around in June 2017, he had just spent a lean season at Yeovil Town, one division below, scoring just four goals in 40 league appearances. Yeovil finished that season 20th in League Two and released him.
It was hardly an eye-catching return on which Ady Pennock based the decision to sign Eaves in the summer of 2017. Yet within a month of the new season, Eaves had scored a second-half hat-trick against Southend United at Priestfield and finished the campaign with 17 league goals (18 in all competitions) accounting for more than a third of Gillingham's 50 league goals as they finished 17th in League One.
The following season's return was even greater as Eaves scored 21 league goals (22 in all competitions) in 43 appearances. He won the Club's Players’ Player of the Year and Goal of the Season awards for an extraordinarily skilful finish at Portsmouth that was subsequently voted by supporters as Gillingham's Goal of the Decade. The Gills finished 13th with 60 league goals, with Eaves again contributing more than one third of the total, although they ended the campaign on one point fewer than the previous season.
A step up to City – appearances can be deceiving
The move from Gillingham to Hull saw Eaves step up from League One to the Championship although it proved short-lived as City were relegated back to League One. He scored five Championship goals plus three in the FA Cup in that first season on Humberside.
When Hull immediately won League One in 2020/21, Eaves found himself behind more productive attacking options. Mallik Wilks scored 19 league goals that season, Josh Magennis, 18 and the emerging Keane Lewis-Potter, 13. Eaves scored four including one against Gillingham at the KCOM Stadium in a 1-1 draw.
Although he made a total of 26 League appearances, he started only six games and was mainly used as a substitute playing 755 league minutes, the equivalent of just 8.4 full games. Four goals in 26 appearances is a poor return; four goals in the equivalent of 8.4 matches (0.48 goals per 90 minutes) suggests a different story.
Of course, the fact remains that others were preferred to Eaves in team selection and he may have been deployed effectively from the bench at Hull. What can’t be known for certain is how Eaves would have fared with more game time.
Back in the Championship in 2021/22 with Hull, Eaves was again predominantly used as a substitute scoring five times in 1,244 league minutes across 31 appearances – a rate of 0.36 goals per 90 minutes.
Rotherham – the apparent low point
Eaves’ two seasons at Rotherham appear the weakest spell of his career, yielding just six goals in 53 Championship appearances. However, again, 40 of those came as a substitute, and he played only 1,608 minutes, the equivalent of 17.9 full matches. After failing to score in limited opportunities during 2022/23, he struck six goals in 1,042 minutes the following season, a rate of 0.52 goals per 90 minutes. While based on a relatively small sample, it suggests his goal scoring ability remained stronger than the headline numbers imply.
Northampton – evidence he can still score
Northampton signed Eaves from Rotherham in July 2024 with then manager, Jon Brady, describing him as more than simply a big target man and highlighting his mobility and ability to produce skilful finishes. It is something that those who watched Eaves at Gillingham first time around will attest and was echoed by Ainsworth last week.
Ainsworth said Eaves would be ‘feared in League Two’, pointed to his ten goals in all competitions last season and emphasised his size, heading ability and greater mobility than people sometimes assume. Crucially, though, Ainsworth also said Eaves is fit but not yet fully match fit.
Eaves had marked his Northampton debut with a goal against Bolton Wanderers but then found his season disrupted by a nasty facial injury – a broken nose and fractures to his cheekbone and eye socket - suffered against Lincoln City.
However, last season, Eaves showed he remained an effective goal scorer despite difficult circumstances. The Cobblers finished bottom of League One with just 39 goals in 46 league matches, yet Eaves scored eight of them, more than one in every five. He achieved that return in only 1,824 minutes, the equivalent of just over 20 full matches, a scoring rate of 0.39 goals per 90 minutes.
That context matters when assessing his release. Northampton may have decided not to retain a 34-year-old striker after relegation, but they were not dispensing with a player who had stopped scoring. They were releasing their leading League One goal scorer.
Eaves was one of six players released in May before new manager, Chris Hogg, was appointed later that month. He then remained unattached through the summer and into the start of this season officially becoming a free agent when his Northampton contract expired at the end of June.
So, what can Gillingham expect?
The reservations are clear. Eaves will turn 35 in January. Before his 27-minute appearance against Newport, he had gone more than five months without competitive football. One cameo does not restore match sharpness. Ainsworth has already acknowledged that work remains to be done.
In headline terms, Eaves has never again matched the sustained scoring rate of his first Gillingham spell. The sustained rate of 0.54 goals per 90 across 6,300 minutes was exceptional. Nothing since has matched it.
However, much of the apparent drop off in his numbers reflects the higher level at which he played and a significant reduction in his playing time.
When released by Yeovil, Eaves arrived at Gillingham the first time around as a released striker whose numbers did not remotely suggest what was about to happen.
At Priestfield, he moved up a division and scored 38 goals in the next two seasons before moving on to play four seasons in the Championship with Hull and Rotherham.
Back in League One with Northampton, he was their leading scorer last season before, like Yeovil first time around, they released him. Without a club for three months, Gillingham have taken another punt – but this time with Eaves moving down a division.
At 34 and in a different squad, expecting Eaves to reproduce his goalscoring form of 2017 to 2019 might be unrealistic but there is evidence that he can still score goals and more regularly than suggested by the headline data.
The case for optimism is substantial. He is dropping into League Two after spending the entire period since leaving Gillingham in either the Championship or League One. As recently as last season, aged 33, he scored at 0.39 league goals per 90 minutes for the worst team in League One.
In 2023/24 his limited Championship minutes produced 0.52 goals per 90. Ainsworth has explicitly framed Eaves as a different, more physical option to the forwards Gillingham have used so far.
What would success look like?
‘Can he score 20 again?’ isn't really a fair test. He has joined after the season has already begun and may share minutes with several strikers. The better question is whether he can score at something approaching his old rate.
With 37 League games remaining, if Eaves played around two-thirds of those, that would equate to approximately 2,220 minutes’ playing time. If Gillingham can get 0.4 to 0.5 goals per 90 minutes from him that would deliver between 10 and 12 goals. Not the heights of his first spell but a useful contribution particularly if enhanced by assists that support the pace and youth of, amongst others, Ronan Hale and Lamin Sillah.
David Tickner writes regularly about Gillingham Football Club on Substack. You can read, follow or subscribe for free at Gills Journal | David Tickner | Substack.
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